The Ibrox Five right-back Nathan Patterson is playing in tonight’s crucial SPL game as Hampden sits mute.
This player shouldn’t be near a football pitch this evening, or for weeks to come, following his incredible decision, along with some of his team-mates, to violate government safety protocols, an act which has jeopardised the sport.
It’s also, by the way, a clear breach of the SFA’s regulations on the matter. Which appears to be of no consequence whatsoever to the club or the governing body itself.
It should, however, be a matter of interest to Celtic, Aberdeen, Kilmarnock and the other clubs who have seen their players banned from taking part in matches.
Those clubs should be absolutely furious at this grossly different level of treatment.
It’s not even particularly consistent when it comes to Ibrox; the previous two players, who some suspect fell on the sword to protect more senior members of the team, were both subjected to SFA disciplinary sanctions and banned. Why not these five?
You don’t need to look hard to see a different standard is being applied here, both in the deafening silence from Hampden and in the media which, it seems, would rather not confront the massive contradictions here or the Ibrox club’s own hypocrisy.
These five footballers committed one of the most serious offences imaginable during this crisis, and they did so at a time when new variants are creeping across the country.
They recklessly endangered themselves and those around them.
The club did its own inquiry, but that’s not supposed to be a catch-all and a Get Out Of Jail card which allows them to escape any sanction whatsoever, either as a club or for the players themselves.
What is taking the SFA so long on this?
What kind of investigation needs to be conducted here? All five players have been named. All five are guilty. Everyone knows this. Where’s the need for this length of time between the offence and the sanctions?
It’s 3 March. The offence was committed on the weekend prior to 15 February; that’s well over a fortnight ago. Should it take this long when there isn’t the slight doubt as to player’s guilt?
Bolingoli’s case took three weeks, but there was no need to do a rush-job with that as our games had already been cancelled up to that point as a consequence of what he did. When Aberdeen players were done at the same hearing they’d not only had games called off, but all the players involved had already missed games because they were in isolation.
In the fortnight since the news broke, this is the second game Patterson has played.
Did these guys even do the basic ten day isolation?
What the Hell is going on with these regulations?
Do they only exist for certain clubs?
We all know that civic Scotland and the media’s opprobrium aren’t applied equally.
We’ve seen that with our own eyes.
But the governing body is supposed to deal with the club in an even-handed way because the clubs are all watching all the time.
How many of them actually care though?
This is so blatant that it makes leaves you astounded; it’s a two-finger “get it round you” to every team which has suffered call-offs, bans and enforced isolations in the course of this crisis so far.
They no longer even make an effort to hide this stuff from us.